Living with influenza: Impacts of government imposed and voluntarily selected interventions

Karima R. Nigmatulina and Richard C. Larson

European Journal of Operational Research, 2009, vol. 195, issue 2, 613-627

Abstract: Focusing on mitigation strategies for global pandemic influenza, we use elementary mathematical models to evaluate the implementation and timing of non-pharmaceutical intervention strategies such as travel restrictions, social distancing and improved hygiene. A spreadsheet model of infection spread between several linked heterogeneous communities is based on analytical calculations and Monte Carlo simulations. Since human behavior will likely change during the course of a pandemic, thereby altering the dynamics of the disease, we incorporate a feedback parameter into our model to reflect altered behavior. Our results indicate that while a flu pandemic could be devastating; there are coping methods that when implemented quickly and correctly can significantly mitigate the severity of a global outbreak.

Keywords: Stochastic; modeling; Pandemic; flu; OR; in; health; services; Heterogeneity; Behavior (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2009
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (11)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0377-2217(08)00200-2
Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:ejores:v:195:y:2009:i:2:p:613-627

Access Statistics for this article

European Journal of Operational Research is currently edited by Roman Slowinski, Jesus Artalejo, Jean-Charles. Billaut, Robert Dyson and Lorenzo Peccati

More articles in European Journal of Operational Research from Elsevier
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Catherine Liu ().